<p>@KF7LCE You’re at Texas A&M. I didn’t realize that TAMU required a 3.5 to keep one’s merit. (now that more of us are aware of that fact, we’ll be sure to pass that on to other high school seniors considering TAMU for merit.)</p>
<p>For an eng’g major, a 3.5 requirement can be risky. I hope that future semesters can be managed in a way to balance your load. Maybe next summer you can take a CC class or two that will make next year easier. If you’re supposed to take Physics or Calc III or Ochem next semester, maybe you can take one over the summer (if sequencing won’t be affected).</p>
<p>Another tip…call your state school and ask if you transfer for spring, will they let you have their original merit offer. There are a few schools that will do this. </p>
<p>My son was a ChemE major and thankfully, that played to his strengths, so GPA wasn’t an issue. However, if he had been an English Lit major, lol, he would have barely been able to keep his head above water. We were glad that E majors get a pass on a number of Core Req’ts. :)</p>
<p>True story of a lost scholarship. Contains reference to bodily functions- do not read further if you are easily grossed out.</p>
<p>In college I had a full tuition scholarship and lived in a house with 40 other scholars. We did have a minimum GPA to keep, but I don’t remember what it was. My freshman year, one of my classmates was legendary in the house for his use of the toilet for hours on the weekend. Apparently he had one bowel movement a week. His floor mates even gave him a plunger at Christmas. Well, come Spring finals, one of his exams was on a Saturday morning. When forced to choose between the final exam and the toilet he chose the latter, failed the course, and lost the scholarship. (He was some kind of engineering major.)</p>
<p>Some schools do hand out a lot of merit to freshmen but with a high bar to keep it, seemingly intending to weed some out.
More honest I think to have fewer merit scholarships but with a more manageable bar.
3.00, is doable but 3.5 could be too much pressure even for a short time.</p>
<p>Agree 3.5 is difficult. My oldest son’s college did not have a probation period. He lost a small scholarship sophomore fall with a 3.3. Read the fine print. It was a small enough scholarship that it was more a bonus for us but I would not put 3.5 pressure on any of my kids for an essential scholarship</p>
<p>I looked up the scholarship I had and the required GPA to keep it is 3.5. I don’t know if it was always this way. I don’t recall anyone struggling to keep the scholarship apart from the aforementioned guy who lost it. There was and still is a separate application process with additional essays and a nomination from the high school, so a pretty rigorous selection process. In other words, the weeding out was done before you stepped through the door. The scholars, at least back then, were a pretty nerdy, academic bunch who entertained ourselves writing mock quiz shows on weekends and then competing in them. Everyone worked hard but nobody really struggled, not even my friends in Engineering.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why a school sets the bar so high. Yes, they may be hoping that they’ll save money when the student loses his award, but they need to look at the bigger picture. The point is to bring in top students. Many/most of these students will have to leave if they lose their merit…few parents are going to take out loans or whatever so that their child can stay at a pricey school after a large award is lost. </p>
<p>Kids leaving after scholarship loss…Is that truly what the school wants? Is the school hurt AT ALL if a scholarship student has a 3.2 GPA? No. Having high stats kids leave hurts the school in two ways…you lose the smarties which profs love to teach and who inspire the classroom, you hurt your “returning students” number, and you now have families that are bad-mouthing your school. Does a school really want families trashing your school over a 3.4 GPA? Bad news like scholarship losses spread like wild-fire.</p>
<p>Just look at this thread. We’ve learned from @KF7LCE that he was a NMF, he had an ACT 34, and he’s scared he’ll lose his TAMU award. In the future when we see kids considering a TAMU award, we’ll warn that student. I know that @KF7LCE had applied to Alabama and would have gotten a huge award…and he would have only needed a 3.0 to keep his award (with a forgiving policy). If I had known about TAMU’s rule, I would have strongly warned him. </p>
<p>I knew of the TAMU requirement, saw it 2 years ago when D was applying. I also saw some discussion on CC about GPA requirement for scholarships at that time and remembered thinking that 3.5 seemed very reasonable to me. I could not imagine that it could be a problem didn’t get why people were warning that it was high and to wary of schools with that high a requirement. These kids all have super high GPA in high school, are very high achievers generally and it is hard to imagine that college will present any difficulties, especially a public school, even a high ranked one. But then you find out when you go that all kinds of things can get in the way of perfect GPA the first year. Sure, lots of kids do get very high grades just as in high school, but not all. I understand much better now that 3.5 is a high bar.</p>
<p>I really did not intend to post, but here goes.</p>
<p>Back in the day, I kept my full tuition 3.5 GPA scholarship-- and I took challenging electives that interested me. I just did my best, and that turned out to be more than enough. Nor was I a drudge-- I joined clubs, and hiked and biked.</p>
<p>My daughter is now in an Honors program with a 3.5 GPA scholarship requirement and seems to be managing so far. They had a separate application process for Honors, quite competitive, so there was a weeding process before college. The school has a policy of giving the kids a chance to get their GPA back up if it drops below the criteria; the scholarship is given then on a probationary basis for the following year. We do have a fall-back plan if she loses her scholarship (commuting to state school) but she has not heard of Honors students who actually had to drop out due to loss of scholarship.</p>
<p>Every child is different. Every situation is different. What works for some may not for others. But is it doable? Absolutely.</p>
<p>My daughter is attending school on a full tuition merit scholarship, which, if lost, would mean leaving the school and getting her degree at the local state school. The GPA requirement is 3.25 and she’s studying engineering. When she visited the school for her scholarship interviews, one of the questions she asked current students in the scholarship program was whether they were struggling to meet the GPA requirements. It’s also a fair question to ask administration-what percentage of kids who enter with this scholarship keep it through graduation?
So far we aren’t concerned about Ds ability to keep the scholarship. Her grades are great, but this was a big area of research for us. We kept hearing from friends of older kids that it’s common for kids to lose their scholarships at our local state school, and know of at least one that did lose a scholarship.
Our daughter knew she had to keep this scholarship to stay at her school. She also knew that losing it wouldn’t mean never finishing college but it would mean commuting to a perfectly good state university without her first choice of major. We had a plan B for life after scholarship loss but it doesn’t look like we will be needing it.</p>
<p><<<
remembered thinking that 3.5 seemed very reasonable to me. I could not imagine that it could be a problem didn’t get why people were warning that it was high and to wary of schools with that high a requirement. These kids all have super high GPA in high school, are very high achievers generally and it is hard to imagine that college will present any difficulties,
<<<</p>
<p>Again, I think many majors tend to have higher GPAs…often the ones that don’t have hard “right answers.” Engineering can be different. There are classes that are notorious for being extremely hard …with top students being happy to escape with a C. </p>
<p>I remember when my Vandy nephew was afraid to tell his parents that he was getting a C in a thermal class. When his eng’g dad found out he said, “oh, everyone gets a C in that class.” (and his dad is a brainiac.)</p>
<p>Employers aren’t shocked to see some C’s on an engineering transcript in certain classes. It’s a “been there, done that” situation.</p>
<p>I’d be nervous about the 3.5 requirement too. There should be some intellectual exploration happening in college which means taking some classes outside your comfort zone and for which you may not be your “best” at. </p>
<p>Several of my kids had big merit scholarships with 3.0 GPA requirements. For D, I never dreamed she would have any trouble keeping a 3.0. However, one semester she barely made it. I talked to the financial aid office at her school and found out they would reduce the scholarship. For example, with GPA between 2.75 and 3.0, she would lose 25% of the scholarship, but had a chance to get it back if she did better the next semester. Fortunately they rounded up her 2.96ish and she didn’t lose any of it. But I was in a panic before I talked to FA–thinking she would lose the whole thing and have to transfer.</p>
<p>Check the exact rules for your particular school. Some require cumulative GPA, others require every term to be above that GPA. Some schools grade harder (D’s school known for lower GPAs in general.) Also, as already mentioned,STEM majors tend to have lower GPA’s. My other kids are at a different school, and from S’s experience, it seems grading is easier there. Because of D’s experience, I did not consider schools for younger kids that required 3.5 or above for merit scholarships. It seemed too risky. There are lot of 4.0+ students in high school, not so many in college, so you can’t necessarily go by high school grades. Also, consider the kid–is your kid very social, the type who will enjoy spending time/get distracted with other fun activities in college?(my D) Or does your kid do nothing but go to class/do homework? (My freshman S THINKS he has to keep a 3.5. I’m not going to tell him otherwise, because he needs the motivation. )</p>
<p>One of our kids selected a scholarship requiring a 3.5 over some other offers without the requirement. Since you never really know how well individuals will make the transition to college I admit to being more than a little concerned. That said, after she got through the first year successfully it never came up again as an issue. I also don’t think it altered her college experience in terms of balancing her social activities with academic requirements. </p>
<p>There were a couple of others in her group that dipped below the GPA requirement. Fortunately, the school didn’t just toss them out on their ears as I had feared might happen is such cases. They had probationary periods, got added counseling, etc. The school gave them ample opportunity to straighten things out. I’m sure that’s not the case everywhere though. </p>
<p>In fact, it might be worth considering the true nature of the scholarship. Is it predominately a marketing ploy where they knowingly stack the deck against a certain percentage, expecting them to flame out, or are they really looking to nurture the next generation of scholars? I think that is the most important factor to consider, and a likely indicator of how the school deals with those who run into trouble. My daughter’s school had no expectation of natural attrition. They expected every recipient to maintain the scholarship and graduate. To my knowledge, except for one student who suffered apparent mental health issues, the entire class of recipients graduated on time with scholarships intact. </p>
<p>We are lucky that S school has very generous scholarships that have the language "must meet academic eligibility. That translates to 1.44 as a freshman and 2.5 as a senior. While you never hope this comes into play, there has been talk of changing it for their full-ride, as 1/4 of the recipients have not excelled academically. I think they just do a bad job of picking their winners as their finalists overall tend to end up Phi Beta Kappa but only 1/2 of the winners earn the distinction. </p>
<p>If you are eligible for a large merit scholarship, then presumably you’d be one of the stronger students in the entering class. So if you do the expected work, you shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping the scholarship. It’s in the school’s interest to maintain high graduation rates.</p>
<p>Tulane requires a 3.0 for the full tuition merit scholarships to be renewed and 2.7 for the partial tuition merit scholarships to be renewed. Mt D has a partial that is roughly half tuition. She has not had to worry about losing the scholarship, she is well above the minimum.</p>
<p>All of us worked very hard in our freshman engineering classes 30 years ago. But I think the ones that struggled the most were those that went to rural hs (less academic choice and rigor) and/or skated through hs on brains alone. Still plenty from all backgrounds worried about their scholarship (I think 3.2 GPA). There was a semester to recover, but some dug a pretty deep hole while adjusting to college first semester. </p>
<p>3.5 could be challenging particular for engineering. That was one of the consideration when my D declined one of the admitted school. Even with the 3.2 requirement that my D need to meet right now for her quite significant scholarship, we did take a caution approach that she started with just 14 credits in her first semester. Not only letting her to test the water temperature in the first semester, she practically started college as sophomore due to AP credits and skipped several freshmen courses. It could be very challenging although she did fine in the mid-term exams.</p>
<p>The merit awards that S were offered had varying GPAs ranging from 3.5 down to 3.0 cumulative GPAs required to keep his award. He happened to choose a U that had a 3.0 requirement. In engineering it is harder to keep your GPA at a 3.5 and above, regardless of how high your student kept it in HS. There are a LOT of factors at play in college that weren’t present in HS–living in a different environment (often), more competition from very bright kids from all over the US & world, making friends in a new environment, much more flexible schedule, often getting used to room mates and study groups, etc.</p>
<p>It can be useful to inquire of the U what % of the kids keep their scholarship all 4 years vs those who lose it on academic grounds, also if there is any probation period where the student keeps the scholarship and has a grace period to bring up grades. </p>
<p>In S’s U, you needed a 3.5 GPA to graduate with honors. S was pleasantly surprised to graduate with honors in engineering (it was a very near thing). To have had to worry about losing his merit award would have been another huge worry.</p>
<p>@tk21769, just because you were one of the strongest students going in doesn’t mean that you won’t have trouble maintaining a 3.5 GPA for some majors. There are some engineering/science/math majors where anything covered in HS or the SAT/ACT is child’s play compared 90% of the courses in that major. As in, the prof would be embarrassed if they put anything as simple as what you find on the SAT & ACT on any of their tests for their class.</p>
<p>Also, unlike what some people may think, undergrad isn’t just undergrad. In the good CS programs, the upperclass courses are indistinguishable from master’s level courses. Other CS programs do not challenge their students as much. </p>
<p>At one state school (with a pretty good reputation in CS), the capstone project was the same as the first project for the same class at MIT. However, state schools may be much less forgiving as well. As another state school that a friend of mine went to (also with a pretty good reputation for CS), if you couldn’t get your code to compile, you got a zero for the project. If you didn’t hand in your code at the start of class, you got a zero for the project (and he said one of his profs would lock the door to his classroom when class started so you better not be late). And with projects making up the bulk of the grade and only 3/4 projects per semester, a zero on a project meant that the best you could do is a D for that course.</p>
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